


Angry, half in love, and tremendously sorry

by S_Winter_Fitzgerald



Series: Angry, Half in Love, and Tremendously Sorry [1]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angry Half in Love and Tremendously Sorry, Angst, Drama, F/M, Headcanon, Quote
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2464046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_Winter_Fitzgerald/pseuds/S_Winter_Fitzgerald
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre- and during 'Blood at the Wheel'. Mainly from Jack's POV, with an occasional glimpse to other's. What went through Jack's mind when he thought Phryne was dead? How did he deal with the aftermath? Despite everything, he hadn't exactly anticipated how hard trying to detach himself from her could be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not the lost past, but the lost future

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned in the synopsis, this story also takes place during ‘Blood at The Wheel’. Given this, there are some scenes and/or lines of dialogue that I lifted more or less directly from the episode in order to respect the storyline and to have a base to expand my own scenes from. It goes without saying that those parts aren’t mine, as well as the characters and some settings. Both Vinson Road and Cinder Street do not exist in reality, as far as I can say.
> 
> This story was originally posted on ff.net and on other outlet in June, 2014.
> 
> It nearly goes without saying that characters you recognise, past storylines, etc. aren't mine.

_I’ve made a Companion Playlist to go with this fanfic. You can find it[here](http://8tracks.com/swf/angry-half-in-love-and-tremendously-sorry) (I'm afraid you can't listen to it anymore if you're outside the US though). _

* * *

 

_"Suddenly [he] realized that what [he] was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be."_

_—   F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Nice Quiet Place_

«I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but Constable Collins has called. I’m sorry,  I’m afraid I may have some bad news… apparently a friend of Miss Fisher has reported that she died in a motorcar accident. The connection wasn’t very good - I’m very sorry, sir».

When Constable Brown told him this, Jack didn’t register it right away. He was looking at him, and listening to everything the other man had said, but it was as if his brain was still caught up in filling out the remaining paperwork concerning Harry Harper’s murder.

«Miss Fisher is dead?», Jack said eventually in a faint and disbelieving tone, more to himself that to Brown when the full meaning of those words finally hit him.

He was glad he was seated because suddenly he felt very weak at the knees, at every limb and joint actually, and would have fallen to the ground at once otherwise. He even seemed to have stopped breathing for more seconds than what could be done. His mouth felt very dry. He tried to swallow that feeling away but it only worsened it instead of making it more bearable.

«I’m very sorry, sir. Is there anything I can help you with?», said Brown earnestly. Everybody at the station was used to seeing Miss Fisher out and about carrying her investigation alongside the police whether Inspector Robinson wanted it or not. Some shock was expected of course, but that substantial reaction wasn’t exactly what he had pictured his boss to have.

Jack tried his best to contain the consternation and the grief that had shaken him to the core and which was starting to take hold of him, proportional to the time that had passed since a dead Phryne Fisher had become part of his reality.

«Where…where was the accident, I mean?»

«Vinson Road, sir. That’s the incident Constable Collins was called for. »

«Thank you, Brown. You can go now.»

The policeman nodded and left. Both of them knew that Jack needed to be alone for some minutes.

He allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment. He wasn’t very given to tears but he wished he had some running down his face at that instant. Perhaps they could help to ease the pain – if only for a little – for minutes enough for him to drive there and see her one last time.

Jack didn’t know where that thought had come from but he needed to see her. No matter how hurt, mangled, and disrupted she could be, he needed to see her. To be there when they parted her from her beloved Hispano-Suiza for good, when she was to be taken away. He knew that all the images he had of her would be enough to overcome that last possibly terrifying picture.

He put his head between his knees. He couldn’t faint now. He wouldn’t forgive himself for not going and Phryne wouldn’t either.

Phryne. He had rarely called her simply that. It was always ‘Miss Fisher’. It was as if calling her by her given name would be like breaking a barrier they would never be able to build up back again, as it if were saved for special occasions that were now forever impossible. Right in that moment, he acknowledged the first pang of sorrow and sadness of many to come: he had grown accustomed to how easily and joyfully she said ‘Jack’, a sound that could not be anything more than a memory now and which he knew he would replay in his head many and many times. Like the kiss, the one that had actually happened even if under ‘safety’ reasons or the one he had stupidly not given her when their moment before the football game had all but actually demanded it. He thought they would have more time, like they had had in too many occasions.

Slowly, very slowly, he raised himself, resumed a sitting position, and looked at his watch.  He had to go now. Jack got himself up and calculated the steps he had to take to the coat rack to get his overcoat and his hat. No more than eight steps, he guessed. He would be able to manage that. In fact, separating every action he had to carry at that moment offered him an odd source of comfort and strength.

 _«Now you have to get the coat. Put your left arm in the left sleeve. Put your right arm in the right sleeve. Adjust the collar»,_ he recited mentally as he completed each of these actions.

_«Now you have to put your hat on. »_

Jack continued this mental litany until he was in the car and had to stop for a moment, as if he had forgotten how to drive all of a sudden and that mantra wasn’t enough anymore. He could ask Brown to drive him there, but this was something he needed to do by himself.

When he finally started the engine and was on his way to Vinson Road, he could barely do so, considering how much his brain was boiling with all the memories of Miss Fisher. Some of them were summoned even if Jack had nothing more than a vague and far away impression that those actions had actually taken place.

Right from the beginning he knew that Phryne wasn’t like any other person he had ever met or was going to, but not even in his wildest dreams had he even entertained the idea of feeling anything of a romantic nature towards her. Despite the fact that he and Rosie were estranged, he was a married man after all. But the more he knew of her, the more difficult it had been to remain resistant to and unaffected by her many charms. She was pretty, of course, but more than her beauty, Jack had been taken hostage of her fast and precise-as-lightning intelligence, her disarming wit, and her fierceness and confidence. His law-abiding ways made it hard to comply with her disrespect for rules, but, at the same time, he admired her for it a great deal, the same way he appreciated her for how she was willing to live her life without anyone telling her how.

A horn coming from the delivery car behind his brought him back to the bleak and hard task he had ahead. A part of him was sure this was something he had to do but there was another that was wishing for the busy Melbourne traffic to be even busier. His rational side reminded him that it couldn’t be. Jack knew once again that if he arrived too late, he would never forgive himself.

Objectively, both of them had plenty of valid reasons to not get involved, to try to ignore and refuse the feelings they knew were binding them together, whether they liked or wanted it or not. Yet, he couldn’t completely shake away the sense of regret for not having acted on them nevertheless.

Vinson Road came up on his left and despite how violently those two words had been clashing against the insides of his head for the last hour, he almost missed it. He reversed for the few feet he had overdriven and as Jack turned he took one of the deepest breaths he had ever taken in his life. Considering the way Miss Fisher used to drive, it was highly probable that she was unrecognisable, that the car had hit the tree with such destructiveness that neither metal, human flesh nor bone could ever sustain that much damage and keep their shapes intact.

He could see everything now. Well, not Phryne herself but the expected trappings surrounding the car on the side of the road. Collins was taking notes. A figure covered in a white sheet appeared from within the vehicle. _Phryne_ , he muttered.

Jack got out of his car and shut the door resolutely. Every action he had undertaken since he had been told the news led to that moment and there was no way to avoid it.

«Sir… I hope I have done the right thing calling you in», said Constable Collins, «I know that motor vehicle accidents are not in your department but…» He meant to continue talking but Jack raised his hand, stopping him. He knew his subordinate meant well but words were not needed anymore.

«I just want to see her», his voice was a bit coarse, but came out more firm than what he had thought it could.

«She’s still in the vehicle, sir» , said Collins once the inspector reached him.

Jack walked past Hugh and contoured the back of the car. It wasn’t her Hispano-Suiza but maybe she had taken the car that belonged to the friend that had called it in. The knot in his throat was tighter than ever but it wasn’t enough to make him waver. Yet, once he was next to the body behind the wheel, he stopped. He knew that to see her one last time he had to peel away the white sheet that covered her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it right away. He was restless. The mix of all the emotions he had been feeling for the past hour was bubbling right under the surface, heightened by the fact that she was so close and yet had never been so far away as in that moment. He put his hand in front of his mouth and stood silent. How could he move forward with it? He took off his hat. Considering that situation, it probably should have been the first thing to do, out of respect, if not for anything else, but his mind was in such disarray it hadn’t occurred to him. Not many things occurred to him beyond the fact that she was dead. Phryne Fisher was dead. He held its brim between his hands for a second. Holding back the tears which had started to form in his eyes, he took a deep breath and put the hat on top of the boot of the car. He had to follow through in that exact moment or he wouldn’t be able to – he was on the verge of losing both physical strength and the courage to do it. Jack took the hem of the sheet on his fingers. It was just a bit of cloth but it felt like it weighted a ton. He started to lift it slowly, readying himself.

«Who is this?», he asked Collins, once he could see the face of the driver.

It wasn’t her. The burden he had been carrying didn’t vanish immediately because it gave way to confusion but it wasn’t her.  _It wasn’t her_ , he realized as another really deep breath left his chest.

«Gertrude Haynes…»

That voice. He would recognise it anywhere. When he turned to his right and saw her, his eyes opened widely. Phryne was right there in front of them. Alive and well.

«…though she preferred Gerty.»

«Miss Fisher arrived when I was alerting the coroner, sir. She knew the deceased and requested your attendance.»

Jack was still trying to gather his bearings. How had the news that she had died begun then? What sort of misunderstandings and mishaps had taken place and fallen in so neatly he thought she was lost forever? That he had lost her forever?

«Just passing by? Were you?»

These words had come out more accusingly than what he had meant but he was so angry. If at her, at the world, at any god or fate, he couldn’t tell.

«You know better than that, Jack.»

She seemed surprised with his reaction. Even at the height of his frustration with her, he had never addressed her like that.

Phryne was saying something about her adventuress club.

«Your adventuress club…»

He still wasn’t able to face her and was still trying to fight the tears, which were now more of rage than of sadness.

«… for like-minded women. I’m madam president.»

«Of course you are.»

She wasn’t the victim of this accident, but she could have been. He admired her courage, but it couldn’t be denied that it also led her to put herself at risk, at too much risk.

She kept talking vehemently about how this wasn’t an accident, how skilled of a driver Gerty Haynes was, but he couldn’t pay that much attention.  It seemed like his head was about to explode. He was in the side of a road and yet felt that he needed some fresh air.

«Even the Celtic queen has the odd accident», he retorted, in reference to her comparison between the victim and Boadicea, turning his head a bit in her direction.

Phryne continued presenting her arguments as to why this wasn’t a simple motorcar vehicle, but once again he couldn’t make much sense of what she was saying. In order to try to calm himself, he let her talk and stood there silently, clenching and unclenching his fist.

«… a wheel doesn’t simply fall off.»

«It depends on how recklessly you drive the car.»

All his attempts at controlling his emotions had been in vain.

After his outburst, they both stayed there for some instants looking at each other, but as if to brush it off – he much doubted she had missed the subtext in his words – Phryne resumed talking, this time about how if Gerty had been driving with her scarf through the door it would have gotten dirty.

In order to prove her assessment, she walked between Jack and the car. He took an unsteady step back but was able to point out that if she were driving fast the scarf would have been flying behind the driver.

«Why aren’t you willing to entertain the idea of foul play?», Phryne asked at last, annoyed with how dismissive he was being.

«Why ask my opinion if you’re not willing to listen to it?»

«’cause… usually that doesn’t bother you!»

Jack found himself speechless. She was rather right, but normally he wasn’t dealing with the fact that up to 5 minutes ago he thought she had died.

In an attempt to diffuse the awkward silence and mood that had appeared between them, he took a deep breath and tried to revert back to the professional side of him that had led her to call for him in the first place and behind which he tried to hide his feelings from her prying eyes even when they weren’t working, with less and less success as of late.

«Who’s her next of kin?»

«Her brother Claude.»

Jack nodded, passed by her, and took his hat from the top of the boot of the Gerty’s car. 

Collins seemed to want to ask him something, but before a single word could leave his mouth, Jack said simply:

«I’ll be at the station. Meet me there.»

He didn’t stop walking nor turned to either Collins or Miss Fisher. He wanted to leave that place behind right away.

Jack got in his car, started it and reversed it, still with the most stone-faced expression he could muster upon his face. He mustn’t crumble there. Even when he was already on the way back, sheltered from inquisitive eyes by the metallic armour provided by the vehicle, he kept like this until he turned to the main road and couldn’t see her in the rearview mirror anymore. Once he took that turn, he tossed the hat to the empty seat on his side, loosened his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt.

He kept taking deep breaths but they were doing nothing to sooth his mood. Jack slapped himself on the forehead. How could he have placed himself in such a position? How could she have made him so vulnerable? Not even in the first months of his and Rosie’s courtship he had felt like this.

It couldn’t be. He couldn’t let her affect him so much. It would be hard but he vowed that from that moment on, he would start to detach himself from her, no matter what it took. For starters, it wouldn’t be very difficult, considering that, unlike what normally happened, he hadn’t officially been called to investigate that particular death so far.

«One day, all of this will not even be a memory», Jack lied to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading this first chapter and feel curious enough to want to find out what's next. Thank you for your time.


	2. The Weight He Had Never Chosen to Bear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned before, this story also takes place during ‘Blood at The Wheel’. Given this, there are some scenes and/or lines of dialogue that I lifted more or less directly from the episode in order to respect the storyline and to have a base to expand my own scenes from. It goes without saying that those parts aren’t mine, as well as the characters and some settings.

_“Tired, tired with nothing, tired with everything, tired with the world’s weight he had never chosen to bear.”_

_—   F. Scott Fitzgerald,_ _The Beautiful and The Damned_

He hadn’t seen her again since Claude Haynes had been told of his sister’s death, firm in his decision to disassociate himself from her. He had been avoiding Phryne for the most of the day and, considering how late it was, he was truly convinced he had succeeded.

Yet, Jack’s mind was still in disarray and he turned to the bottle he had stored in the back of the last drawer of his desk and which he hadn’t touched since someone had given it to him for Christmas three years ago. A part of his being truly despised himself for falling into such a cliché, but the other was glad for the release it had brought him. His slurred thoughts still revolved around Phryne – how could they not – but they seemed more like illusions than anything palpable at that moment at least. 

Hearing her voice at the front desk startled him and dragged him out of that haze, if only for some feet. She was insisting upon seeing him and Collins was telling her that Inspector Robinson was busy. Phryne wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, she never did, especially because she was finding Jack’s behaviour that day the most odd thing. From his usual place, seated down behind the desk, he could see through the frosted glass panel the shape of the constable trying to stand in front of it to prevent her from getting in, and Miss Fisher working her way until she was able to open the door, almost as if it were a game.

«Jack? I have new developments concerning Gerty’s murder», she announced from behind Hugh’s body, her head peaking over his right shoulder.

Apart from a small raise of his eyes, he didn’t move. He did too. Three hours ago he had been put in charge of that same investigation and hadn’t yet found a way to get out of the case.

«What do you want me to do, sir?»

The constable was still between them, waiting eagerly for instructions.

Jack shrugged his shoulders. There wasn’t much he could do to stop her apparently. He wouldn’t have Collins manhandle her towards the front door. He put the whiskey glass on the floor, hoping that the massive desk might hide it from her.

Phryne hadn’t even set foot inside his office and she was already sharing the new developments she had thought would grant her entrance.

«Good evening to you too, Miss Fisher», he said, after having looked at his watch, both to count exactly the minutes he had managed to go on with his day without seeing her and maybe hoping that such sort of universal sign of having things to do afterwards would rush her.

A wheel-nut that belonged to Haynes’ car was put on his desk. He took a quick look at it and asked the formulaic questions his professional training put on his mouth even if he weren’t in great state, as it happened in that moment. His head hurt and it seemed that it was spinning as much as the unrestrained wheel of Gerty’s car had on the previous night.

The loose wheel might have caused the accident, someone might have sabotaged it while the motorcar’s owner was away, as she so triumphantly had told him, but the coroner report also showed that Gertrude Haynes had been strangled.

Jack turned the file towards her. It was his time now to be proud of having news to tell, more ‘scientific’ news instead of some unproven theory. Over the months of their work together he had grown out of the need to make it known that he had out smartened her, that he had arrived first to the answers they were both looking for, but the mixture of anger and grief which had been shadowing him since that morning, not to mention the whiskey, had overcome any restraint he might want to have.

She didn’t take it as he wished she had. Quite the contrary. Someone had murdered her friend; she had had her point proved. Now it was time to find the killer and put them behind bars.

Phryne moved confidently from in front of Jack’s desk to the chair on his right. Her eye had caught a glimpse of something shiny in the wastebasket, covered by some paper sheets, but the glass by the foot of the table confirmed the suspicion that had developed in her since she had walked through the door. Jack wasn’t behaving oddly only because of whatever had rattled him in the morning, he was also inebriated. Despite their usual nightcaps, she had never seen him like this, and it didn’t become him. He had all the workings to become a quiet yet surly drunk and he was much better than that.

«Can we be friends again? In spite of my cavalier approach to driving?»

She sat on the chair, ready to figure out what was wrong apart from the certainty that her driving style had something to do with it. His earlier remark about reckless driving had been aimed at her but amongst Gerty’s passing she hadn’t made much sense of it until now.

«It’s true. You drive too fast», he acknowledged dryly.

«Too fast for what? A milk-cart?!»

«And you’re needlessly reckless.»

Jack finally looked straight at her while he spoke, almost as if he were pleading. What had happened to his resolution to stop caring for her?

«That’s an opinion,  not fact. I would suggest you could apologise to me by offering me a drink  but…», Phryne took the empty bottle from the bin.

Jack felt truly ashamed of himself. Worse than having been drinking like that was having it be disclosed by her. He couldn’t face her for any longer, so he kept looking at the wheel-nut he was turning in his fingers.

»…but considering your lack of supplies and your new penchant for drinking alone, I’ll settle for sitting in your interview with Claude.»

Why was she smiling like that? How could he resist her if she kept being her witty, intelligent, bright, alluring self?

He chastised himself mentally for having shown her the file. He hadn’t meant to tell her that he was now leading the investigation until it was unavoidable but he had given it away, even if, in hindsight, her mention of the interrogation was very much a sign that she already knew that.

«As it happens, my shift finished an hour ago». He wasn’t very sure he would go home right away, but if he were out of the station at least he could be sure she wouldn’t barge in like that.

Jack took the seven steps to the door without looking back. They were as heavy as they had been that morning but for very different reasons. Back then he thought he had lost her, now he knew he would have to lose her.

«Goodnight, Miss Fisher», he said, keeping his eyes on the wooden dark floor, trying to keep the disappointed and surprised look on her face out of his sight but failing spectacularly at doing so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well. 
> 
> Feel free to say something if you feel like it. Thank you for reading this story.


	3. In The Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned before, this story also takes place during ‘Blood at The Wheel’. Given this, there are some scenes and/or lines of dialogue that I lifted more or less directly from the episode in order to respect the storyline and to have a base to expand my own scenes from. It goes without saying that those parts aren’t mine, as well as the characters and some settings. Cinder Street does not exist in reality, as far as I can say.

_“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”_

_—   F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby_

Whoever walked by that small weatherboarded  Victorian house with a little verandah, would never guess how unsettled its tenant was.

Jack hadn’t looked at his watch, but could predict more or less accurately that he had been looking at that particular spot of the ceiling for about half an hour. There wasn’t anything special about it but he had woken up at 5.18am and hadn’t been able to even shut his eyes again. Well, ‘waking up’ wouldn’t be the exact term he would use, considering that once the slumber caused by the whiskey was over, he merely drabbled on sleep, drifting in and out of it for 20 minutes or so from time to time. 

His neck hurt. His whole body was sore, in fact. He hadn’t actually gone to bed that night; once he had gotten home, he had fed Gregor, let him in, and  thrown himself on the sofa, where he had stayed ever since. It wasn’t that wide and considering the terrible night he had had, it was sort of wondrous he wasn’t on the floor.

It was absolutely quiet apart from the slight snoring of Gregor sleeping on his rug by the window, under the table on top of which stood the radio and the small portable gramophone. He had taken in the short-coat tricolor merle Koolie two years ago, when he had seen him roam the street for two days back then when it was still a puppy. Jack had just given him some food and water at first, waiting to see if anyone was looking for him, but no one came, he had grown attached the dog and the dog seemed to have grown attached to him too, so he kept him. Walking him in the morning before going to the station had showed itself to be useful for getting his mind ready for the day ahead and coming home and taking him for a walk following a long and stressful shift proved itself to be quite relaxing. What surprised him even more nonetheless was finding out eventually that having a being welcome him so warmly seemed to make the world not look as hopeless as it had during his job.

He had been living in that house for three years, after having moved out when, despite leading completely separate lives, the perspective of meeting one another everyday no matter how briefly had become unbearable for both him and for Rosie, if for different motives.

Finding it hadn’t been easy. His experience with house-hunting was nearly reduced to having had to get somewhere to live once he had finished his Police training. Including the interval of his army years, he had gotten out of his parents’ house to the school dormitory, then to the aforementioned small flat shared with a police mate, and from there to the house that had been Commissioner Sanderson’s wedding gift to his daughter – if they were to rely on Jack’s pay, Rosie would never be able to live in a house befitting someone like her -, something that never stopped looming over him, especially during the mandatory family Sunday dinners.

Jack had gone through the classifieds, talked to some real estate agents, and driven around the city for about 6 months before he had come across a place that suited him. Some had the rent and location he was looking for but once he got inside he noticed they were too run-down or too dark, as it were still the fashion in many of the buildings he visited, especially the Victorian ones. He didn’t like those busy or deep-coloured wallpapers in brown or red or burnt orange at all. Loathed them, in fact.  No matter how much light came through the windows, having those walls around him reminded him of the trenches, as if they too were on the verge of caving in, of burying him forever under the rubble, as it had happened to many men by his side and had almost happened to him once.  When he stood in those houses, he felt his chest very heavy, had some trouble breathing and almost seemed to hear the shots, bullets hitting human bone and flesh, the cries, the fear of dying but also the courage to fight for king and country and for themselves. He could never be at ease in his house if it made his brain flashback to the war. His rational side reminded him that they were nothing more than bricks, mortar and plaster, but what are bricks at their essence if not dirt?

«TO LET - Small Victorian House. 1 living room, 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, kitchen, small yard. Natural Light. Good condition. Good location. »

Nothing in those 21 words could assure him that it wasn’t going to be another wasted chance, smothered by that overwhelming feeling that was becoming excessively familiar in his visits as of late. He wouldn’t lose anything by trying again. The policeman in him couldn’t simply give up just because he seemed to reach a dead end at every turn.

He drove to Cinder Street in his lunch break to meet with Dr. Richards, the owner of the house. A late-September sunny and blue sky hung over the 330 yard-long way, but his entire life under the Melbourne weather had taught him how quickly it could change.

Already out of the car, Jack looked around, wanting to get a sense of the place, while he waited for the man who would eventually become his landlord. The street was mostly flanked by late-early to mid-Victorian houses, more or less contemporary to the one he was interested in, ranging from a pink-ish beige to salmon. Because this was a working and middle class neighbourhood, they weren’t as ornate as in some other  parts of the city, but their simplicity still allowed to flourished cast iron brackets under eaves, decorative valances on the verandahs and a couple or two of design details in the windows and door-frames. Small front-yards limited by timber picket fences or cast iron palisades in the colours that better suited the rest of the building separated them from the street.

All the houses seemed lived in. In front of some there were children playing and clothes drying under the watchful eyes of the mothers or of old men sitting on chairs and taking in the sun. Part of the others appeared to be empty at that time of the day, but the care with which the gardens had been tended to, the curtains sheltering the inside of the house from unwanted attention and the rugs carefully placed in front of the door revealed that their owners were away for the day only.

It looked like a pleasant enough place to live, he thought, even before looking at nr. 74 more attentively.

That one was smaller than the majority of the houses in that street and its light-grey colour also made it stand out from the rest. Considering its size and that instead of ornate cast iron brackets it had a simple wooden bar between two plain columns supporting the roof over the verandah, as well as the absence of any decorative glass or many intricate details, he guessed that it was probably one of the oldest there. Even if the fence, some boards and a corner or another of the frames needed a coat of paint and the garden had grown too wild, at least from the outside the house seemed to be in the good condition promised by the advertisement. Besides, truth be told, he could definitely use bringing them back to shape to keep his mind occupied.

Dr. Richards arrived at last, apologising for being late. He had had to attend to an emergency with a motorcar accident victim but was hoping that Mr. Robinson could still see the house. When Jack walked into the living room, he let out an unexpected sigh of relief. The walls weren’t dark. They were of a light sage green that he didn’t like much but they weren’t of any of the dreaded colours and because of this he almost took the house right away. Yet, despite the strange easiness with which he started to picture himself living there, he waited until he could see the other rooms and how extensive the work done two years ago had been. By the time they arrived at the backyard all the doubts had vanished meanwhile.

After having tackled the outside, in agreement with Dr. Richards, he had slowly changed the colours inside, working for some hours in his off days. For the living room he had chosen light beige for the walls, but kept the ceiling and the mouldings white, as he did with all of them about the house. It seemed to brighten the room and it went well with the dark wooden floors, mantelpiece and the surrounds of the fireplace, set in the opposite wall from the front door, the features he couldn’t reform.  Besides, he had found the contrast between that colour and the one of the deep-blue sofa, placed on the right of who walked into the house and which had been one of the first things he had bought when he had moved in, to be a pleasant one.

The furniture was sparse but in good taste, made of dark wood and with simple but sturdy lines – the table with the radio, the small side-table with a little metal and glass lamp on top of it that stood in the corner between the sofa and the wall, the bookcase on the right of the fireplace which shelves held his History, Geography, Law, Aviation, and General Fiction books, some English, Australian, and German classics, and the Detective stories he liked to read to both guess who had committed the crime but also to point out the facts and procedures that could never take place in real life.

To make the living room seem more finished, he had hung venetian blinds in front of the two windows of the room, one over the sofa and the other above the table under which the dog slept. He also put up an illustration of a group of cyclists by the beach on the chimney and gotten the rug with geometrical motifs in beige and blue that appeared from under the couch to the line about one feet away from the polished stone hearth.

The sound of the gate being opened outside made Gregor wake up, raise his head and let out a small bark but he didn’t move or make any sound. The dog’s reaction and the click of glass on the pavement lead Jack to believe it was the milkman, which meant that it was probably about 6.00am already.

He ran his hands over his face and his head. He was sure he would feel terrible nevertheless, but having some locks of hair greasy with pomade glued to one’s forehead and being dressed in yesterday’s crumpled and dirty clothes couldn’t help to improve anyone’s mood. A shower and changing into a clean suit and shirt were absolutely needed. Perhaps he would feel a bit more human-like afterwards.

Jack got up from the sofa at once; readying himself for the long day he had ahead of him. It included continuing pursuing the Haynes investigation and, worse than that, probably having to meet Phryne again. He took a deep breath. He was a professional, he would do his job. Gregor seemed to want to get up from his place too, but didn’t, once Jack told him to stay.

Since he was already up, he went to the front door to pick up the bottle of milk and bring it inside. When he came back, Gregor followed him, hoping to be let out to the backyard, familiar with the morning routine.

To get to the kitchen he had to walk through the dining room, which was separated from the living room by an archway. It was a small area painted in the same light beige but less put together than the first. Considering that three out of the four walls had either a door, a window, both or a fireplace very similar to the one on the other side of that precise partition, he still hadn’t figured out a way to put the furniture in a satisfying manner, especially because the only free one was right in front of the passage from the sitting room. It was something he believed he had sort of learnt to do meanwhile, as he had come to acknowledge that finding and making this place his was something he rather liked, once he had overcome the feeling that his job was the one and only thing going for him but it was almost as if he had run out of ideas after having worked on the first part of it. For the time being, a four-chair dining set in a similar style to that of the rest of the furniture stood in the middle of the room – he didn’t need that many but the shopkeeper would only sell it like that and it was quite a find for the price he had paid -, and the desk had been put in the corner between the fireplace and the window on the wall on the right , near the entrance of the kitchen. The upright piano that had belonged to his parents was against the front wall, next to his bedroom door.

«Go on then», he said to Gregor, who sat patiently, waiting for orders, after having opened the door at the end of the narrow kitchen that lead to the yard.

The room had gray and blue linoleum floor, light yellow walls and white and teal cabinets. At first sight he hadn’t liked the colour scheme much but had grown keener on it. Cheerful and optimistic weren’t the type of words he would have ever considered associating with a house but those were the feelings they triggered in him and he could definitely feel like it more often. He left the milk bottle on the counter and went to his bedroom. If he didn’t rush, he would be late for work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed my idea of Jack's house and a glimpse of his life outside the Police station. Let's hope we get some more in Season 3.
> 
> I also hope you have been liking to read this story so far. Thank you!
> 
> P.S: I know the timing and circumstances of Jack moving out of the house he shared with Rosie are a bit off, but I guess some details had escaped me when I first wrote and posted this. I find it would be sort of strange to arrange things now.


	4. As a Moving Picture or a Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned before, this story also takes place during ‘Blood at The Wheel’. Given this, there are some scenes and/or lines of dialogue that I lifted more or less directly from the episode in order to respect the storyline and to have a base to expand my own scenes from. It goes without saying that those parts aren’t mine, as well as the characters and some settings.

_"There is a sort of waking nightmare that sets in sometimes when one has missed a sleep or two, a feeling that comes with extreme fatigue and a new sun, that the quality of the life around has changed. It is a fully articulate conviction that somehow the existence one is then leading is a branch shoot of life and is related to life only as a moving picture or a mirror."_

_—   F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Lees of Happines_

The interview with Claude Haynes had gone well, but his day would have gone even better if she hadn’t been at the garage when he went to get Ailsa Wilton to come to the station and answer some questions.

«What’s going on, Jack?»

«Certain information has come to light in our interview with Mr. Haynes.»

Despite the interruption provided by the protests by Ailsa’s daughter, he had replied to her automatically as it had happened so many times before. When this fact dawned on him, it was too late already. His mouth had been faster than his brain, and the best he could do in that moment was to leave without saying a single word more. This intention was trampled on however by Millie Wilton’s sudden confession – she had been the one to remove the wheel-nut.

And just like that, before he knew it, they were both in the interrogation room.

 _You’re a professional, a highly competent police detective and you are going to do your job and do it well,_ he recited mentally once again, considering these unwanted circumstances as he walked into it.

Jack made his inquires without looking at Phryne one single time. The girl was scared and the possibility that having someone she knew in the room could lead her to talk more easily had been the only reason why he hadn’t forbidden her to be there. When he got over with that case, it would be much easier to cast her out of his life entirely.

But when she assured Millie that her foolish act hadn’t actually killed Gerty, he couldn’t help himself. What was she doing? The girl wasn’t completely exonerated yet, why was she giving out the few important evidence they had?

«Even though those actions were delinquent, malicious, and with disregard to Miss Haines’ well-being…»

«Jack.»

«Or of anyone on the road.»

The angry tone in which he had said those words revealed how futile his attempt at being level-headed had been. He was more resentful than what he had tried to convince himself he was, it turned out. To top it all, later that night, when Jack replayed those words in his head, he noticed who had been their real aim.

It was then her turn to look at him in surprise. The last days had been full of «firsts», it seemed. His approach to interrogating was usually thorough and intense but she had never seen him on the brink of losing his mind like that. Her bafflement with his attitude deepened even more and prompted her to want to do whatever it took to find out its reasons. Truth be told, despite the fact that they had met every day, she missed Jack . This distorted version of him couldn’t be further away from her friend and these days of dealing with him so frequently only served to remind her of that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thank you for your time.


	5. Half Truths and Evasions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned before, this story also takes place during ‘Blood at The Wheel’. Given this, there are some scenes and/or lines of dialogue that I lifted more or less directly from the episode in order to respect the storyline and to have a base to expand my own scenes from. It goes without saying that those parts aren’t mine, as well as the characters and some settings.

_"They talked from their hearts — with the half truths and evasions peculiar to that organ, which has never been famed as an instrument of precision."_

_—   F. Scott Fitzgerald, Forging Ahead_

 

Regardless of how vehemently he had promised to keep away from her, Jack seemed to continue not being able to do so completely.

After the disastrous interrogation of Millie Wilton, he had gone to his office and shut the door, hoping that she would get the message and leave the station without disturbing him.

And so it happened. He had heard her heels passing by his office on the way to the street but she didn’t knock on the door or said anything from the other side.

During the afternoon, he fumbled with the papers on his desk for a while but couldn’t find the concentration needed to read them properly. Normally, the cases he was working on provided plenty of things to keep his mind occupied and some success in rather frequent occasions, but now not even that was going according to the plan. The Haynes murder wasn’t any closer to being resolved, or the Parker or the Branson cases, for that matter.

Jack rubbed his eyes with his fingers, closed the folders and started to organize them in chronological order on the top of the desk. When he was done with it, he went on to sharpen the pencils. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake tonight. His mind was not as sharp as usual and he wouldn’t cloud it with alcohol. The best thing to do was to go home, take a walk with Gregor, have dinner and go to bed early. No reading a book whilst listening to the radio or to a record after a light meal. A good night sleep wasn’t the answer to everything but it could definitely help. It was obvious he had had better days already but he was sure that the outburst and general bad temper had something to do with his latter lack of rest as well.

«Are you going home, sir?», asked Collins, when he saw him come out of his office, already in his overcoat and with his hat in his hands.

«Yes, I am, Collins.»

The Constable looked at the watch on the wall in front of him without actually meaning to. He was pretty sure he could use his fingers to count the times his boss had left the station at the exact time of the end of his shift.

«I hope you didn’t mind me asking but I have a message for you, sir. Miss Fisher asked me to tell you to come by her house when you were done with work for the day», he said somewhat frightfully.

«Thank you, Collins. Goodnight.»

«Goodnight, Sir.»

Hugh hadn’t exactly been able to figure out why it was different, but he had already noticed that Miss Fisher and the Inspector hadn’t been properly getting along for the past few days. He had asked Dottie but she knew as little as him.

Jack exited the station, got in the car and headed home, firm on his decision to stick to the schedule he had set for the night. Yet when he reached Cinder Street, he didn’t even stop and continued driving south towards St. Kilda.

 _Miss Fisher asked me to tell you to come by her house when you were done with work for the day._  He had been very naïf in thinking that she would leave just like that. She hadn’t and he didn’t seem to either, considering that he was on his way to her house. But it would all come to an end that night. It had to.

«Goodnight, Inspector!», greeted Mr. Butler when he opened the door. « Miss Fisher is expecting you in the parlour.»

As soon as he set foot in the hallway, Phryne appeared. Had she been in pins and needles all evening, waiting for him? Her quickness and open smile lead him to believe so, and he couldn’t say he was indifferent to that.

« Jack, I’m so glad you came. I wasn’t sure you would», she said earnestly, once he had handed his coat and hat to Mr. Butler. « Come inside and sit down», she invited, walking to the bar cart. « Whiskey?»

He had walked steadily to the armchair where he usually sat in, glad for not having to face her directly for at least a minute or two.

«No, thank you. Not today.»

«Alright», said Phryne, coming to sit in the chair across him, bringing a drink for herself.

She looked ravishing as always and it was even harder to look at her than what it had been during the day, now that there wasn’t anyone else in the room with them.

«Are there any news?», she asked in an animated tone. Phryne knew that if she tried to fish for information regarding his feelings right away Jack would get even quieter and could even leave too soon.

«Nothing new, I’m afraid.»

«That’s a pity.»

«The inquiries and procedures that took place during the afternoon lead to nothing.»

«I’m sure we’ll find something very soon.»

« I also have other cases to work on.»

«Of course, you do, and I understand it.»

Phryne had stressed that first ‘we’, trying to get some reaction from him but he hadn’t noticed or was only trying to pretend he hadn’t. Considering his reply, she leaned more towards the latter.

» I went back to the VAA lounge just in case but I guess that there’s nothing new to find there.»

« We also took all the testimonies we could from the employees and from some guests.»

«Perhaps people saw something important but haven’t realised it yet.»

«Perhaps.»

That void dialog continued for a minute or two more. Both knew they were saying nothing of importance, but letting silence fall upon them wasn’t a viable option. The complexity of their relationship had never allowed much space to silences that didn’t become awkward eventually but staying there without uttering a word seemed to be even more dangerous now.

«Do you want to play a game? If Dot and Mr. Butler weren’t so thorough with their cleaning I’m sure my draughts would have gotten cobwebs by now…», Phryne said, smiling encouragingly, trying to awake the competitive streak in Jack. Over the course of their friendship they had already played their fair share of intense games, and she hoped the memory of them could pave the way for his confession.

«Alright then», Jack replied absentmindedly. He wanted to be able to say the words he had thought about on his way to there, but they seemed to have escaped him completely.

Phryne went to the cupboard on her left to get the game.

When she placed it on the table and started to take the contents from the box and to put them on the table, Jack raised from his chair.

She looked at him, still holding a handful of dark pieces between her fingers.

«Are you afraid you may lose?», she asked jokingly.

«I just thought over your offer of a drink. Would you mind if I poured one for myself?»

«Not at all. Feel as if you were at home.»

 _At home_ , he thought while he was by the bar cart getting himself a glass of whiskey. That’s the place where he would be at if she were easy to ignore.

When he came back to the armchair, Phryne had already set everything in place and was looking at him with a devilish grin.

«You may be the guest but I’m the one with the light pieces, so I’ll start first», she said, moving one in the front on the farthest right.

*** 

The dark pieces had started to pile up on the side of the board almost from the beginning of the game, which was probably going to become the fastest that had ever taken place. His brain was being rattled by the odd dance of the unspeakable emotions going through him with the Haynes case ever since the beginning and he hadn’t been able to concentrate much on it.

«Anthony Rose claims he wasn’t at the lounge, but his car indicated otherwise», Phryne said, making one of her pieces reach Jack’s side. «Crown me», she asked with a triumphant twist in her voice.

«If Millie is to be believed…», he put one of the few pieces he had conquered on top of hers, «… Mr. Rose did it. What was his motive?»

He finally brought himself to face her but not for very long.

«Gerty turned down his proposal. He could’ve followed her to the lounge to have it out with her, witness the crash…»

«… and taken the opportunity to strangle her.» Despite their differences and the animosity that guided their first interactions ever, they had come to a point where they finished each other’s sentences, led by thinking processes that never had been as distant as they had pretended, even now. As hard as it was for him to admit it, Jack couldn’t deny that this was something he would miss a great deal. «It’s a theory.»

Another attempt at back-pedalling, at trying to keep his distance until it was actually true.

«A good theory», Phryne countered, taking a sip of her drink afterwards.

«I wouldn’t get that far.»

He moved the only piece he hadn’t touched yet.

Phryne put her glass down with a pang, and moved her crowned-piece, capturing his last three.

«I won again», she said, speaking strictly about the game, given that he remained as closed off as when he had arrived and barely took his eyes off the carpet. «You’re usually so much better at this game. You come here, you drink my whiskey, you accept my help but you won’t even do the courtesy of trying to beat me». She was attempting to be patient but if taking by force the piece he kept rotating between his fingers was the first step to make him snap out if, she would definitely do so.

«You’re right. I’m off my game», he acknowledged. Like Phryne’s, his confession was also much broader than what had happened on the board. Jack finished his drink.

«When I heard about the car accident…»

Jack still didn’t’ face her. He felt confident enough to say what he had been meaning to for two days but he knew that if he dared to look straight at her he would lose that balance which he had suddenly found in him.

«Hugh, sent you a message…»,

«All I heard was ’Miss Fisher’, ‘a crashed motorcar’…»

Deep breaths had punctuated these words but they weren’t enough to ease the physical pressure he felt on his chest.

«Jack», she muttered. It all made sense now but the way those words had taken her aback was very surprising, in spite of the shift in their relationship as of late, before all this.

«You thought it was me.»

His eyes drifted towards her face for an instant. She was truly moved by his words and by what he had gone through for the last two days.

« I’m still here.»

«Not thanks to your driving.»

He regretted having talked like that as soon as it left his mouth, but it was what he felt and there was no way to go around it.

« Thank you for the nightcap. I must be heading home. »

He got up, took his hat and his coat and left without saying another word.

How he found himself at his house, Jack wasn’t quite sure, considering he barely remembered to have taken the turns and being on the roads that lead there. Once he arrived, he let Gregor in and fell onto the bed. That day had been way too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your time. 
> 
> Comments/reviews/kudos are highly appreciated, if you feel like leaving one.


	6. No Amount of Fire or Freshness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned before, this story also takes place during ‘Blood at The Wheel’. Given this, there are some scenes and/or lines of dialogue that I lifted more or less directly from the episode in order to respect the storyline and to have a base to expand my own scenes from. It goes without saying that those parts aren’t mine, as well as the characters and some settings.

_“No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”_

_―F. Scott Fitzgerald,The Great Gatsby_

Jack had gotten a good enough night of sleep but he was still as unsettled as before. Considering the effort he had put into paying attention to Anthony Rose’s interrogation, he believed he had gotten a hang of what he had said, but the large majority of the questions had been posed by Miss Fisher still.

It was then with great satisfaction that he had found out that Lachlan Pepper was the author of the threatening note Gerty Haynes had in her purse. It was with less enthusiasm though that he had found that calling Miss Fisher with the news was what seemed the proper thing for him to do. He cursed his strong sense of loyalty. If it weren’t for it, he was sure he could have conducted the proceedings in the most normal fashion, like the other detectives did, as if she had nothing to do with the case.

«Come by my house later, to fill me in. »

And so he did.  He felt sufficiently rested and self-assured to know that he would behave much more accordingly this time. What he wasn’t counting on was meeting Pepper on his way out when he was about to walk in, yet Jack couldn’t say he was that surprised.

If someone unaware of their latest troubles took a look at their conversation in that evening, they would never guess how strained their relationship was. They were both talking in an open, somewhat friendly manner and Jack was talking directly to her; no one’s attention seemed sewed to the carpet this time. The facts they knew spun into other theories and things seemed to make more sense now. Anthony’s alibi wasn’t very strong, to say the least, he couldn’t try to refute it further without evidence but Jack could still question Pepper, she suggested.

«I intend to.»

Phryne was the one looking in the distance now, searching in her brain for another step they could take.

Jack gazed at her, in silence as well. That discussion had been the first time he had felt completely at ease in that week.

«I’ll see myself out», he said suddenly.

He couldn’t let that feeling creep up on him again.

«Of course», she said when he was with his back turned to her already. She had noticed how pleasant their talk had been too, but she wouldn’t give him any clue to that. Phryne was well conscious that he was taking his things from the coat rack but she didn’t look at him, continuing to fake interest in the book she had taken off the side table, a position she didn’t change when she felt him staring at her from the hall.

Jack hadn’t exactly meant to stand there and watch her, but he hadn’t been able to avoid doing so, when he had caught her movements from the corner of his eye. The quickness with which she had opened that book and the fact that she hadn’t said goodnight seemed to be telling that she was distancing herself from him too, a thought that tightened his heart. He was truly sorry to have hurt her and even sorrier for not having stopped the course of that night before it had become so familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far. I hope you keep enjoying this story.


	7. How Much Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned before, this story also takes place during ‘Blood at The Wheel’. Given this, there are some scenes and/or lines of dialogue that I lifted more or less directly from the episode in order to respect the storyline and to have a base to expand my own scenes from. It goes without saying that those parts aren’t mine, as well as the characters and some settings.

_"You never knew exactly how much space you occupied in people’s lives."_

_―F. Scott Fitzgerald,Tender is The Night_

The call to the Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages had been very fruitful regarding the particular bit of paper he had found in the press cuttings folder but he wasn’t expecting to see Phryne still at Wilton’s garage when he went there. Well, hear Phryne was more accurate, considering that she hadn’t opened the door, just talked to him from the other side.

«Is Ailsa there with you?»

No one answered.

«Phryne?»

The easiness with which her given name had left his lips bewildered him, if only for a moment. It happened to her too, but that the thick door kept from him. It turned out that there was no need for a grand occasion for him to say it again; despite it all it had been right on the tip of his tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're only one chapter away from finishing reading this story. I hope it hasn't been a very strenous task.
> 
> Thank you for your time.


	8. Angry, half in love with you, and tremendously sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned in the synopsis, this story also takes place during ‘Blood at The Wheel’. Given this, there are some scenes and/or lines of dialogue that I lifted more or less directly from the episode in order to respect the storyline and to have a base to expand my own scenes from. It goes without saying that those parts aren’t mine, as well as the characters and some settings.

_"Angry, and half in love with you, and tremendously sorry, I turned away."_

_—  F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby_

Despite the fact that he considered that his words after the draughts game had been a breakthrough and how they had gotten along better since then, he was still sure that they couldn’t live any more walking on that tightrope as they had.

Knowing now how devastating losing her could be, he couldn’t allow himself to get more tangled in their relationship, as selfish as it might sound. For his own sake, he needed to protect himself from the strength of those feelings, because he was sure that if he had to really go through it all there was no chance he would come out of it unscathed. His pragmatism was strong, but he wasn’t sure if it was enough to handle something of this magnitude.

Yet at the same time, he knew that he couldn’t ask her to stop putting herself at risk, nor he wanted to. Asking something like that was akin to want her to stop being who she was, and he preferred to stay away forever than to even try to convince Phryne to change her ways. If she weren’t like she was, he wouldn’t have fallen in love with her.  _He had fallen in love with her._  Until that night, Jack had never put it as boldly as that, he had never even thought those words, let alone say them, but he didn’t have many doubts now that it was what had happened - a realisation so strong he let out a gasp and put the back of his hand on his forehead.

It hadn’t taken place right away, even after their times of discord and distaste for each other were over. At first, he had admired her for her courage, boldness, intelligence, resourcefulness, and beauty, a feeling that evolved to friendship when their bond thickened based upon not only their common investigative activities but also because how they could play off of each other and pushed themselves to be the best they could, still carried by the competitive vein they had in them and that remained from their first standoffish interactions – his first standoffish interactions, mainly -  and how they could care deeply for the people around them.

Jack had always regarded Phryne in high esteem, but it hadn’t prepared him for the path his feelings had followed meanwhile. He didn’t consider himself incapable of love altogether but his changed self that came from the war seemed to have lost a significant part of it back in Belgium, forever numb because of all the pain, loss, and tragedy he had witnessed there. He had always been very reserved, even before joining the army, so people didn’t seem to have noticed it much, but he felt that something was off with him, a situation that combined with the other differences he had noticed about his demeanour and personality had led him to be even more timid. Over the years, he had been able to revert back to who he was in some aspects, but he hadn’t understood how important they actually were until the last past months or so, when he realised he was more open and serene about plenty of things, a stage to which she had contributed a great deal.   

He had been laying on the sofa for some time once again. In the dark, he had been trying to find the words that would definitely sever any bond they had but he was failing. It wasn’t easy for many reasons, and that gratitude was one of them. He knew it would be as painful for her as it would for him and the thought of making her suffer was sickening almost to a physical level.

 _It will be the best for both of us in the end_ , he kept thinking every time he felt himself falter. If it didn’t happen it would have to eventually and it was best if they parted now that they had good memories but were in a troubled time of their friendship than down the line when the good stories that had actually happened were many more than those they could effectively remember.

Jack looked at his wristwatch. 8.41pm. He should really go to her house now or it would be too late in the night for doing so and he couldn’t even picture having to postpone it another day.

«Why can’t you help me?», he said to Gregor, who was lying on his rug, and looking puzzlingly at him now.

He got up from the sofa and went to the small bathroom. He combed his hair and tried to look a bit more presentable but had to resign himself to the fact that his poorly slept nights and stress were written all over his face.

Jack went back to his bedroom. There were no light beige walls here, but in a light gray instead, even if the furniture was in the same simple style in dark wood like the one in the rest of the house. It wasn’t a very big room, so he could only fit a bed, a bedside table, a wardrobe and a chair, but it still managed miraculously to not look cramped, even despite the fact that they weren’t from the same set.

He was glad he had taken off the coat, but throwing himself on the couch in two thirds of his suit hadn’t been the smartest idea. His clothes looked a bit more wrinkled than the standard his police uniform and army days had instilled in him overall, but it didn’t seem to show it that much now that he had the jacket on again, he remarked whilst looking at his reflection in the mirror on the middle door of the wardrobe, turning off the lamp afterwards.

Before leaving, he checked if Gregor still had water and exited through the back-yard gate.  The night was a bit chilly but he welcomed the feeling that breathing in the cold air was giving him; it made him feel energised somehow.

The drive to St. Kilda seemed to have been shorter than what he had wanted. It was odd to notice that almost all his trips had felt an awful lot like that over the past days.

As expected, lights were still shining from the windows of the parlour, on the ground floor. Miss Fisher wasn’t the kind of woman who went to sleep early and even if they had never been formally arranged, their celebratory toasts once the case they were investigating was closed had become a habit.

 _One that will be very hard to break,_ he thought, an idea that seemed to twist his throat into a Gordian knot.

In order to stop getting even more nervous, he quickly got out of the car, opened the gate and knocked on the front door.

«Goodnight, Inspector!», greeted Mr. Butler somewhat joyfully.

He couldn’t exactly see Phryne dwelling endlessly on his resolution, but she was a sensitive and emotional woman and the first times might be difficult. Jack was glad to know that she would have wonderful people like him by her side to help her through them, at least.

«Goodnight.»

«Jack! I was beginning to give up hope», she said, visibly happy to see him. «Whiskey?», she offered, walking to the bar cart to get it.

He didn’t reply right away. His nerves seemed to have canalised all his energy to standing up, pressing the brim of the hat between his fingers and looking wistfully at her.

«Ah…no, thank you», declined Jack, when Phryne was next to him with the glass in her hand, which caused her expression to change from delighted to surprised and even a bit hurt very quickly.

She put the glass on the table and turned to him.

«You’re not indulging tonight.»

«I came to return something of yours you left in my car», he said, taking the stocking she had used to clog the exhaust-pipe and prevent him from arresting Ailsa before she could say goodbye to her daughter. Jack knew it was a pathetic thing to do but it was as if he didn’t want to let her think that that he had gone to her house to make up but with a purpose in mind instead. He had never been a person who lied much and when he did his lies weren’t usually very good, but none had ever been as terrible and contrived as this. Terrible, contrived, and angry, for some reason it seemed. It had not been his intention, when he was trying to come up with what to say, at least.

«You didn’t wash it», a tinge of interrogation coated her words. It was an odd question in the middle of an even odder situation, but getting it clean before returning it seemed something his politeness would lead him to do.

«I didn’t see much point, the exhaust-pipe burned right through it.»

 _There it was, that dismissive tone again_ , Phryne thought.

«It was only a small delay.»

«Engineered by you once again to your own advantage.»

«I know we have some minor points of contention, Jack, but we enjoy uncovering the truth together, don’t we?»

She was trying to lure him in, to stop him from taking that step that seemed more and more definitive as time went by. It was getting her nowhere, Jack appeared to be immune to the ‘we’ she mentioned again.

«Therein lies the problem.»

 _He wasn’t then,_ she thought.

The hopeful look on her face was tearing him apart. She always had a light to her he couldn’t quite explain or quantify but the optimism in her smile, eyes, and, voice seemed even more evident in that night.

«What do you mean?»

The disillusionment that fell over her eyes made him feel ashamed of himself but he wouldn’t be hindered by it, he couldn’t be hindered by it. So he looked at the floor, kept starring that the brim of his hat and took a deep breath.

«When I thought it was you…», despite having avoided looking at her in many occasions as of late, he would step up to the challenge and face her now, she deserved that, «… in that wreckage, I found that unbearable.»

Yet his resolution didn’t last very long and he was looking at the floor again. He trusted her as he had never trusted anybody but it was very difficult to be that vulnerable nevertheless, to put his feelings upfront like that.

«Sounds serious.»

«It is», Jack acknowledged, forcing himself to look at her again, correcting course.

Apart from the clock ticking, the room was completely quiet. That sound was too cruel, he thought. Time hadn’t stopped and yet he found that his world had.

«I am who I am, Jack, I can’t give that up.»

«I’m not asking you to give that up. I would never ask you to do that.»

«So you’re giving up me, instead.»

She could see right through him. It was almost as if she had been inside his head when he had come to that conclusion, in his car, only two days ago, even if they felt like longer. She was finishing his thought process once again. This left him speechless and made him lower his eyes.

«What we do best, us, together you’d sacrifice that?»

Jack looked at her but kept quiet despite the somewhat pleading inflexion that punctuated her words. What else could he say? There was nothing else to be said. It was all over.

«If you did that Jack… I would feel… I would feel you were the one laying in that wreckage.»

Her voice trembled and her eyes glistened with tears. He didn’t say a word - He knew it too well.

« Please can you think about that?»

His eyes too were getting watery and but he managed a faint nod.

Jack turned around a got out of the house.

When he closed the door behind him, he covered his eyes with his hands. It might not be driven by the reasons Phryne or his heart intended him to but he was sure he would think about it indeed.

 

Thank you for your time again.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this last chapter.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading the entire story. Keep an eye on here. I'll post another story set in this same universe. I hope you enjoy it too.


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